


Nevermore

by FridaysAt9



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Creepy, F/M, Heartbeats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:29:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27175909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FridaysAt9/pseuds/FridaysAt9
Summary: The raven outside Scully’s window rattles her nerves, leading her to a late night visit to Mulder’s apartment for a little comfort.Part of the Horror Exchange 2020
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 13
Kudos: 36
Collections: X-Files Horror Fanfic Exchange (2020)





	Nevermore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LivingInSmilesIsBetter (axm)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/axm/gifts).



> my one word prompt from LivingInSmilesIsBetter was "Raven." This is my first time writing horror, but this was a great word to get, so thanks! I hope you enjoy this creepy little story! 
> 
> Thanks to my betas, my husband and kids, who listened while I read this aloud at the dinner table (and scared my youngest, by the way).

The room was dark, or as dark as an apartment in Georgetown could be. The street lamp outside shown through the sheer curtains, joined by the bright white light of the full moon. So no, the room wasn’t actually dark, but it was darker than daytime, and dark enough to sleep in.

Outside the window, deep within the leaves of a large tree, sat a Raven, unmoving. The wind blew the branches, but the bird kept its balance, sitting, and staring through the windowpane. Looking. 

_ Craw! Craw! _

Inside, Scully jumped at the sudden sound breaking through the silence of her sleep. She wasn’t sure what had woken her and as the fog of sleep lifted from her brain, she forgot that there had been a sound at all. 

Scully rolled over, rubbing her face in her pillow and calling for sleep to come back to find her. But a sharp clicking pulled her back, made her open her eyes.

_ Click, click, click.  _

_ Click, click, click.  _

She listened, on edge, her senses at full alarm, ready to jump and run for her gun at a second’s notice. 

_ Craw! _

A bird. A bird with a large repertoire of sounds. One that had woken her from her sleep with its call. 

Awake now, Scully pulled back the covers, stepped out of bed and walked to the window. She pulled back the curtains, squinting as the light from the street lamp hit her eyes. As her vision adjusted, she searched the street, the tree and the building opposite, looking for the culprit. 

_ Click, Click, Click! Craw! _

At the sound, she found her nighttime intruder. Standing deep within the tree sat a Raven. It was enormous, looking far too large to be living within the city limits. 

The bird was still, unmoving on its perch, and its eye was trained on Scully. She watched it in silence as it stared back at her with a look of intelligence and recognition. The moment stretched on as neither moved, regarding each other in the semi-dark of night.

_ Craw! _

The bird’s shriek was as sudden as its movement, taking flight and leaving the tree, causing Scully to jump before chiding herself for scaring so easily. 

There was no chance of her falling back to sleep with so much adrenaline coursing through her body. She turned towards her bedside table to check the clock. 2:45am. 

He would be awake. 

She hurriedly dressed, tossing on a pair of black pants and a sweater. As she put on her shoes, she looked at the place where she kept her gun. She was off duty and probably wouldn’t need it, but she was rattled and on edge. 

She told herself the feeling was only her imagination. It was a product of interrupted REM sleep and a jolt of the fight or flight hormone. She wasn’t in danger. And still… 

She let out a groan, disappointed in herself, and walked to retrieve her weapon, quickly grabbing the holster and attaching it to her body. 

She felt better, which made her feel ridiculous. 

———

Mulder answered the door, looking not at all surprised to see her standing outside his apartment at 3:00 in the morning. 

“I can’t sleep,” she said to his tall and brooding, unmoving form in the doorway. “Can I come in?”

Mulder pushed the door open wider, allowing her to slip in under his long, outstretched arm. 

“You okay, Scully?” Mulder asked her as he followed her into the living room. She sat on the couch, leaning forward to rest her arms on her thighs, hands clasping and unclasping between her knees. 

“I don’t know,” she admitted as he sat down next to her, his leg touching the length of her own. “Something is bothering me.”

“Is it the case?” he asked. She tried to think of what their last case had been, the one that they had just closed the previous week, but her thoughts were muddled and lazy, and she was too tired to bother to call it to mind. 

“I don’t think so,” she said, turning to face him. “There was a raven outside my window. It woke me up. It was… unnerving.”

“Most people think that ravens are a sign of evil or something ominous,” he told her. “But really they are more often seen as a reminder to pay attention to our surroundings. To focus on what is happening in our lives.”

Scully nodded, considering his words, when a sudden sound caught her attention. 

_ Click, click, click.  _

_ Click, click, click. _

She felt her heart beat faster as she remembered the sound of the bird outside her window, before she realized this sound was different. Not at all the sound of the raven. 

“Mulder, do you hear that?” she asked, straining to find the source of the sound. 

“Hmm?” Mulder hummed in response, distracted by the remote in his hand, aimed at the television. 

Scully stood and walked towards the opposite wall, following the sound, looking up towards a vent near the ceiling. 

_ Click, click, click.  _

_ Click, click, click.  _

It sounded like a typewriter.

“Mulder, I’m having a little deja vu,” she said, turning around to find an empty couch. 

_ Craw! _

Scully spun to face the window, hand on her hip, reaching for her gun. 

_ Craw! _

She patted her hip and down her thigh, but her gun wasn’t there. She had put it on before leaving her apartment. Had the holster broken? What had happened to it?

_ Craw!  _

She could see the raven sitting on the window ledge, looking in, making eye contact. 

“Mulder?” she called, slowly backing away from the window and out of the living room. 

_ Tap, tap, tap. _

Scully quickly turned towards the door, as she heard more tapping coming from the other side. Her heart was pounding as she cursed her missing gun. 

She looked at the window, where the raven was still sitting, staring inside.

_ Tap, tap, tap. _

“Mulder?” she called, her voice a shaking, demanding whisper. There was no response. 

Scully inched towards the door with a pace that should have been paired with a gun in her hands, aimed at whoever was on the other side. 

The tapping continued as she stepped closer, and closer. 

Her hand was on the knob, about to twist, when she felt it move, not of her own accord, causing the door to burst open. 

The looming figure in front of her, tall and dark, with a hood over his head, placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back, further into the apartment. 

“No,” she managed to say as her mind tried to scramble for an explanation, and a way to save herself from what was to come. “No!”

The man pushed her back towards the couch and onto the floor as his hand found the seam in the button down shirt she didn’t remember putting on. His fingers dug in, piercing her flesh, digging between her ribs. Searching. 

Scully screamed until her throat was raw. 

———

She sat up in bed, her hand on her heart, willing its frantic beating to slow to normal. It had been a dream. She had dreamt of the moment when she had thought she was going to die, there on the floor of Mulder’s apartment with her heart ripped from her chest. 

But it had been a dream, a horrible, and very realistic dream. 

She placed her palm flat on her chest, comforted by the fact that she could feel her heartbeat. Actually, Scully could practically hear its beating, telling her that she was alive, that the man hadn’t stolen her heart. 

She took a breath, trying to calm her nerves, but realized it would be no use. She would make tea, turn the TV to something boring and forget the dream had ever happened. 

She could still hear the beating of her heart as she removed the kettle from the stove and poured the water into her mug. Maybe it was just her pulse, the blood rushing in her ears. The rest of the adrenaline working its way out of her bloodstream. 

But as she walked with her tea towards her living room, the beating only got louder. Was she going crazy? 

She put her mug on the coffee table, and looked around the room. Everything was where it belonged. Nothing was out of place.

She needed to turn on the TV, watch some infomercials and settle herself down. 

She turned back towards the couch and began to sit, when she heard it. 

_ Craw! _

Scully’s heart immediately beat faster, its sound filling her ears. 

Her gun was in her bedroom, where she was sure she would also find the raven looking in from outside. 

She would have felt better if her gun was in her hands, but without any other option, she walked slowly towards the bedroom, inch by inch.

The heartbeat grew louder, now, she realized, coming not from within her, but from somewhere else. The sound was coming from within her bedroom. 

The beating continued to get louder with every step, closer and closer to her bedroom. 

She slowly approached the doorway, peering through the darkness, the beating sound making it difficult to focus on anything else. She squinted through the darkness at something near the edge of her bed. A shoe. A foot.

Dropping all attempts at caution, Scully threw herself to the floor. “Mulder! Mulder!”

But he didn’t move. His body was under the bed with only his foot poking out from the end. 

Silence filled Scully’s ears as she scrambled around the side of the bed, trying in vain to pull him out. 

The beating resumed, so loud Scully wanted to squeeze her hands over her ears. 

“Mulder?” she called, reaching for his face, but unable to stretch far enough. 

She climbed to her feet and nearly tripped over his shoe as she raced to the other side of the bed, before freezing in place and clapping her hands over her mouth. 

Mulder’s arm was stretched out from under the bed, lit by the light of the street lamp and the moon, and in his hand was his still-beating heart.

“NO!”

———

Scully jumped from her sleep, gasping for air with her hand on her chest, her heart beating as fast as a hummingbird. 

“Hey, hey,” Mulder said, wrapping a large hand around her bicep, and stroking her hair with the other. “It’s okay. It was a dream.”

“Mulder.”

“I’m here,” he soothed. “You’re okay.”

“You were,” she tried to explain, but fear was coursing through her body, blocking her thoughts. “There was. Your heart.”

Mulder chucked and pulled her close. “Jeeze Scully. Maybe we should lay off the scary stories before bedtime.”

The lights were on in the bedroom in their house. Mulder sat with the newspapers he had been reading laying across his lap. Her copy of the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe sat where she had left it on her bedside table. 

She sighed, snuggling in close. “It’s almost Halloween,” she told him. “I usually like scary.”

“Maybe we should keep it to earlier in the day from now on.”

Scully felt herself calming as she breathed him in. “There was a raven,” she told him. 

“You know, most people think that ravens are a bad omen. A sign of evil,” he said, stroking her hair.

Scully smiled, comforted by the fact that Mulder would always be Mulder. 

“They are actually a reminder to be aware of what is around us,” he continued. “Take stock of what we have.”

Scully hugged him tight and closed her eyes, doing exactly that. 

**Author's Note:**

> You probably already noticed, but with a prompt like “Raven” I had to turn to Poe. I took a little of The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart and mixed it up with my favorite episode, Milagro. Also, I follow a raven, believe it or not, on Instagram. The account is called lokitheraven, and it is there that I learned about the many sounds ravens make. Go check it out. You’ll fall in love with the bird!
> 
> As always, thanks in advance for feedback!


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